50mb package, only getting 6mb, very confused!

IrishTeddi

Hey guys,

I just had the UPC engineer over at my place, as we were on the 30mb package up until yesterday, but we were only getting a max of 4mb download speed.

We've had that speed for ages now, and we just accepted that that's what we were able to get. However, having spoken to tech support, they told us that was a terrible speed to be getting, and that something must be wrong.

Yesterday they upgraded us to the 50mb package, and now we're getting no more than 6mb download speed. There's 4 of us in the house, and I'm the only one connected via LAN cable to the modem, and I'm getting the same speeds as they are. Doing speed tests (UPC's and Speedtest.net) All shows up as 52mb down, and 5mb up.

Anyone know what's going on here? The engineer was baffled as to why we were getting slow speeds. He ran all his diagnostic tools and everything was coming up fine. Strong signal, zero contention etc.

I'm running no major firewalls, nothing that should impeed my speed.

I'm living in the city center, so it's not a geographical issue.

Any thoughts?

Alzone

hey,

Did you have a look at the difference between bites and Bytes? Just wondering because your numbers don't match up. If you have a connection of 50 MB from your ISP and you get 6 MB download speed, it's quiet a lot. However if you have only 6 Mb, it is only 0,75 MB download speed, which is really slow. My ISP here in Cork provide a 15 MB package and I have a download speed of 1.6 MB at the maximum.

If you really have these download speeds, yes it's very slow and you should probably expect 2 MB download speed. Also, what download tools are you using (torrent client, ftp,...?)

I had the same issue with UPC a while back (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056738519)

(Edit: You can have a look at this website : http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/broadband/help/how-fast-is-my-broadband-upload-speed-download-speed-and-speed-test )

IrishTeddi

Now, don't you think that's being a bit too pedantic? You know what I was talking about.

Megabytes. The line is a 50 Megabytes package, and the most I'm getting is 6 Megabytes. I didn't think I'd have to write it out fully. I'm extremely computer literate, so I've already troubleshooted most possible methods and nothing has worked.

We should be getting a 50 megabyte download, and we're not. Torrents/Steam...all max out at that speed.

There are no Broadband companies offering a 50 megabit package. Nothing like that would exist.

Pov06

IrishTeddi wrote: »

Now, don't you think that's being a bit too pedantic? You know what I was talking about.

Megabytes. The line is a 50 Megabytes package, and the most I'm getting is 6 Megabytes. I didn't think I'd have to write it out fully. I'm extremely computer literate, so I've already troubleshooted most possible methods and nothing has worked.

We should be getting a 50 megabyte download, and we're not. Torrents/Steam...all max out at that speed.

There are no Broadband companies offering a 50 megabit package. Nothing like that would exist.

Your line is a 50 megabit line not a 50 megabyte line

7upfree

IrishTeddi wrote: »

Now, don't you think that's being a bit too pedantic? You know what I was talking about.

Megabytes. The line is a 50 Megabytes package, and the most I'm getting is 6 Megabytes. I didn't think I'd have to write it out fully. I'm extremely computer literate, so I've already troubleshooted most possible methods and nothing has worked.

We should be getting a 50 megabyte download, and we're not. Torrents/Steam...all max out at that speed.

There are no Broadband companies offering a 50 megabit package. Nothing like that would exist.

You have a 50 Mb (Megabit) Line. There are eight bits in a byte, so if you downloading at a speed of 6MB (megabytes), then you're actually achieving a download speed of 48 Mb (Megabits). On a 50 Mb line. So what's the problem?

matt-dublin

Did you just say all your speed test results are showing 52 down and 6 up???

That's what it supposed to be!!!

7upfree

IrishTeddi wrote: »

There are no Broadband companies offering a 50 megabit package. Nothing like that would exist.

http://www.upc.ie/broadband/

This should help:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-mbps-and-mbps.htm

drumswan

IrishTeddi wrote: »

I'm extremely computer literate

:pac::pac:

Dick Masterson

IrishTeddi wrote: »

Now, don't you think that's being a bit too pedantic? You know what I was talking about.

Megabytes. The line is a 50 Megabytes package, and the most I'm getting is 6 Megabytes. I didn't think I'd have to write it out fully. I'm extremely computer literate, so I've already troubleshooted most possible methods and nothing has worked.

We should be getting a 50 megabyte download, and we're not. Torrents/Steam...all max out at that speed.

There are no Broadband companies offering a 50 megabit package. Nothing like that would exist.

Hahaha, you're confusing megabits with megabytes.

50 megabits is 6 megabytes a second. I upgraded to 50mb with UPC a few weeks ago and I downloading from uTorrent, the speed I was getting was 6mb/s - that's about a song a second.

There's nothing wrong with your broadband, you just need to familiarize yourself the terminology.

Surely you would have noticed how fast your connection was? UPC's 50mb package is one of the fastest connections in the country.

Are new to this internet stuff or something?

Mr Benevolent

Yup, definitely confusing megabits and megabytes.

Nonoperational

IrishTeddi wrote: »

Now, don't you think that's being a bit too pedantic? You know what I was talking about.

Megabytes. The line is a 50 Megabytes package, and the most I'm getting is 6 Megabytes. I didn't think I'd have to write it out fully. I'm extremely computer literate, so I've already troubleshooted most possible methods and nothing has worked.

We should be getting a 50 megabyte download, and we're not. Torrents/Steam...all max out at that speed.

There are no Broadband companies offering a 50 megabit package. Nothing like that would exist.

Well, that's embarrassing. The poster is actually correct, and you are confusing your bits and bytes.

:pac:

IrishTeddi wrote: »

Hey guys,

I just had the UPC engineer over at my place, as we were on the 30mb package up until yesterday, but we were only getting a max of 4mb download speed.

We've had that speed for ages now, and we just accepted that that's what we were able to get. However, having spoken to tech support, they told us that was a terrible speed to be getting, and that something must be wrong.

Yesterday they upgraded us to the 50mb package, and now we're getting no more than 6mb download speed. There's 4 of us in the house, and I'm the only one connected via LAN cable to the modem, and I'm getting the same speeds as they are. Doing speed tests (UPC's and Speedtest.net) All shows up as 52mb down, and 5mb up.

Anyone know what's going on here? The engineer was baffled as to why we were getting slow speeds. He ran all his diagnostic tools and everything was coming up fine. Strong signal, zero contention etc.

I'm running no major firewalls, nothing that should impeed my speed.

I'm living in the city center, so it's not a geographical issue.

Any thoughts?

Sounds like your broadband is performing perfectly.

Pov06

What's more worrying is that UPC couldn't figure out OP's issue

siblers

You could surely tell that your internet was zipping along at 50 Megabits per second? How fast exactly are you expecting your internet to be?

7upfree

Pov06 wrote: »

What's more worrying is that UPC couldn't figure out OP's issue

What issue?

matt-dublin

7upfree wrote: »

What issue?

Op did well, he complained about a non existent issue and got a free upgrade which they'll start charging for in 6 months!

jimmycrackcorm

matt-dublin wrote: »

Op did well, he complained about a non existent issue and got a free upgrade which they'll start charging for in 6 months!

50mpbs is their standard base entry now. What I find strange is that the instalation engineer didn't cop on about the difference

MrO

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

50mpbs is their standard base entry now. What I find strange is that the instalation engineer didn't cop on about the difference

Extreme computer literacy can sometimes overwhelm even the best of engineers